Sustainable biofuels, biomaterials, and fine chemicals production is a critical matter that research teams around the globe are focusing on nowadays. Polyhydroxyalkanoates represent one of the biomaterials of the future due to their physicochemical properties, biodegradability, and biocompatibility. Designing efficient and economic bioprocesses, combined with the respective social and environmental benefits, has brought together scientists from different backgrounds highlighting the multidisciplinary character of such a venture. In the current review, challenges and opportunities regarding polyhydroxyalkanoate production are presented and discussed, covering key steps of their overall production process by applying pure and mixed culture biotechnology, from raw bioprocess development to downstream processing.

Ligninolytic fungi and enzymes (i.e., laccase, manganese peroxidase, and lignin peroxidase) have been applied recently in the production of second-generation biofuels. This review contains the analysis of ligninolytic enzymes and their applications in second-generation biofuels. In here, each of the ligninolytic enzymes was described analyzing their structures, catalysis, and reaction mechanism. Additionally, delignification and detoxification, the two most important applications of ligninolytic enzymes, were reviewed and analyzed. The analysis includes an evaluation of the biochemical process, feedstocks, and the ethanol production. This review describes the current situation of the ligninolytic enzymes technology and its future applications in bioethanol industry.

This research seeks a coupled solution for managing the large amounts of biochar produced by microalgae biofuel production, and the necessity for novel, economic and accurate heavy metal sensing methods. Therefore, this study evaluated the transformation of microalgae biochar (MAB) into carbon dots (Cdots) and their subsequent application as heavy metal ion sensors in aqueous systems. The experimental phase included the transformation of MAB into microalgae biochar-derived carbon dots (MAB-Cdots), MAB-Cdot characterisation and the evaluation of the MAB-Cdots as transducers for the detection of four heavy metal ions (Pb2+, Cu2+, Cd2+, and Ni2+). MAB-Cdot fluorescence was stable over a wide range of pH and resistant to photo-bleaching, making them suitable as fluorescence probes. The MAB-Cdot fluorescence was quenched by all of the metal ions and displayed different quenching levels. Depending upon the ions involved, MAB-Cdots were used to detect the presence of heavy metal ions from concentrations of 0.012 μM up to 2 mM by measuring the reduction in fluorescence intensity. Neutral and slightly alkaline pHs were optimal for Cu2+ Ni2+ and Pb2+ heavy metal quenching. To quantify the concentration of the heavy metal ions, linear and logarithmic functions were used to model the MAB-Cdot fluorescence quenching. The sensing mechanism was determined to be reversible and purely collisional with some fluorophores less accessible than the others. This work demonstrated the ability to produce Cdots from microalgae biochar, examined their application as a transducer for detecting heavy metal ions in aqueous systems and paves the way for novel sensing systems using MAB-Cdots.

In this work, Leptosphaerulina sp. (a Colombian native fungus) significantly removed three Isoxazolyl-Penicillin antibiotics (IP): oxacillin (OXA, 16000 μg L-1), cloxacillin (CLX, 17500 μg L-1) and dicloxacillin (DCX, 19000 μg L-1) from water. The biological treatment was performed at pH 5.6, 28 °C, and 160 rpm for 15 days. The biotransformation process and lack of toxicity of the final solutions (antibacterial activity (AA) and cytotoxicity) were tested. The role of enzymes in IP removal was analysed through in vitro studies with enzymatic extracts (crude and pre-purified) from Leptosphaerulina sp., commercial enzymes and enzymatic inhibitors. Furthermore, the applicability of mycoremediation process to a complex matrix (simulated hospital wastewater) was evaluated. IP were considerably abated by the fungus, OXA was the fastest degraded (day 6), followed by CLX (day 7) and DCX (day 8). Antibiotics biodegradation was associated to laccase and versatile peroxidase action. Assays using commercial enzymes (i.e. laccase from Trametes versicolor and horseradish peroxidase) and inhibitors (EDTA, NaCl, sodium acetate, manganese (II) ions) confirmed the significant role of enzymatic transformation. Whereas, biomass sorption was not an important process in the antibiotics elimination. Evaluation of AA against Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538 revealed that Leptosphaerulina sp. also eliminated the AA. In addition, the cytotoxicity assay (MTT) on the HepG2 cell line demonstrated that the IP final solutions were non-toxic. Finally, Leptosphaerulina sp. eliminated OXA and its AA from synthetic hospital wastewater at 6 days. All these results evidenced the potential of Leptosphaerulina sp. mycoremediation as a novel environmentally friendly process for the removal of IP from aqueous systems.